What is a leader?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a leader is “a person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.” A leader’s role is to lead his followers and to carry them along with him, to the path of success. In order to be a good leader, a person must possess a certain amount of qualities. One major quality that a good leader must possess is the ability to inspire and influence people. A leader with the use of words and wisdom, should be able to gain followers who are willing to fight for the same objective. Not only, to obtain people who believe in the same purpose as the leader does, but to also change people’s minds and way of thinking, to also, follow the same goals as them. An example of this could be of the Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Hitler through his speeches was able to inspire a lot of people to fight against the United States and the other allied countries. Although, Hitler may have committed a massive amount of crimes against humanity, he was still a good leader, as he was loyal to his people and was able to inspire them to fight for Germany. Another thing a good leader should possess is passion and willingness to succeed and achieve their goal. A leader should be passionate about what he is fighting for, and not be hypocritical. Finally, a good leader should always be creative, he should want to bring change to the world. He should always think of new ideas and strategies instead, of using the same old one’s used in the past. Creativity is the most key quality a leader should possess. These are the qualities I believe a good leader should possess.

Steve Jobs

Who is Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California on February 25, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who put him up for adoption. As a child, he was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs, who named him Steven Paul Jobs. Jobs’ father was a Coast Guard veteran and a machinist whilst, his mother was an accountant. Through his father, Jobs learned a lot about Machines thus, creating his passion for Electronics. He was an incredibly smart kid although, very distracted and always messed around. In 1971, he was introduced to his future partner, Steve Wozniak. They both shared a passion for electronics, thus got along with each other. In 1974, he took a position as a video game designer in Atari, which was the top gaming developing company at that time. Several months later, Steve left Atari to live a Bohemian life and began testing psychedelic drugs. At the age of 21, he got together with Wozniak and duo started Apple Computers. Their idea was to revolutionize the computer industry by making the computers compact and cheaper, so that they are easily available for all consumers. Within, three years the company’s sales were $139 million. Apple computer became a publicly trading company, with a market value of $1.2 billion. However, after the Apple II, the next few products suffered from significant design flaws. Thus, the executives believed that Jobs was hurting Apple and fired him from his own company. Jobs then purchased an animation company from George Lucas, and named it Pixar Studios, which later became a major animation company and was merged with Disney, thus, making Jobs Disney’s biggest shareholder. Steve Jobs later returned to his post as the CEO of Apple in 1997. With his return to Apple, Jobs was able to bring Apple back on track by creating many ingenious products like the iPhone, Mac and iPod, have made Apple what it is today.

What is Steve Jobs leadership style?

Steve Jobs was an incredibly unconventional leader, his leadership can easily be said to be debatable, as his techniques were incredibly different, and isn’t something that can be found in the text books. Although, Jobs’ was known at times to show an autocratic leadership style, as he wanted performance, and aimed for perfection. He was forced to be demanding and strict, so that the workers would improve and would think outside of the box. At that time, people did not want to do anything that would force them to get out of their comfort zone, this was something Jobs’ hated very much. He wanted his workers to be as creative as possible, and look for ways to make the personal computer simpler, for the use of the layman. He wanted to make the computer not a thing that only qualified people would want to use, he wanted to make it an extension of everyone’s life – an appliance. Thus, in order to achieve this, he had to give blatant and cruel remarks to those people who would stick by the traditional methods and would not want to do anything new. Jobs’ despised these people, and thus, would fire anyone who did not show creativity or would simply state that something is not possible. Jobs’ believed that Apple’s purpose was to bring change to the world, by constant innovations and creativity, therefore, anyone who did not stand by this, was fired from the company. Other than this, due to Jobs’ remarks to always achieve better, he faced many conflicts with the board, who were against his autocratic style. Although, autocracy can be deemed bad, however, in Jobs’ circumstances, he was forced to use force in order, to achieve the best of the company.

Why did I choose Steve Jobs?

I personally think of Steve Jobs as a role model; his ideas and beliefs have inspired me to also bring change into this world. His ideas of creativity and always innovating are the main reasons for the success of Apple Computers. Apple thrived solely because, Jobs wanted to do something that had never been done before. He wanted to push the boundaries and possibilities of personal computing and make it applicable in a home environment for the layman. Jobs had the ability and passion that is required to be a good leader. Jobs desired change, and to achieve his goal he had to sometimes resort to an autocratic leadership in order to achieve what he expected from his product. People at that time, were very closed minded and did not think of the possibilities that can be achieved with a little creativity. Thus, developers and board members thought, Jobs’ was naïve, and was trying to over achieve. However, Jobs proved everyone wrong and brought his dream to life by simply remaining motivated and dedicated in his work. Jobs possessed most of the qualities that are required to be a good leader. Henceforth, I chose Steve Jobs as an example of an ideal and successful leader.

What was Steve Jobs’ best moment as a leader?

Steve Jobs best moment as a leader would be the creation of Apple I and Apple II, the creation of these to personal computers were his first big achievements thus, creating Apple computers and brought him where he stands today. Creating the Apple I and Apple II were difficult tasks, as they did not have the sufficient resources to create them. Although, Jobs’ was successfully able to create them through his leadership, that allowed him to lead his recruits.

What is Jobs’ organizational structure like?

The picture displays the organizational structure of Apple Co. that was created by Steve Jobs. In the picture, it shows Jobs (CEO) being at the center of the hierarchy whereas, everyone else would be around him. So this means that, if anything wanted to go through, it would have to go through him. Jobs was a person who liked to have full control over his company thus, he wanted to know what was going on through all departments. Jobs organizational structure could be quite unique, and nothing like the average structures. Although, the structure has a few flaws as accounted by an Apple Employee, David Sobotta, “If we saw Steve Jobs come into a briefing, he couldn’t talk about anything else, other than the thing he was working on … He came into an enterprise sales briefing, and at the time he was working on iMovie. So, we’d be talking about home movies in the enterprise briefing.” (Business Insider). This was one flaw in the flow of the structure, as many other projects would be set aside by Jobs.

Is the organizational structure long-lasting?

Former CEO of Apple Steve Jobs, has created an efficient organizational structure that allows him to be in the center of everything. Steve Jobs wants the future CEO’s to also perform in Apple the same way as him, thus, carrying on his legacy and continue his dream. Thus, the future CEO’s should also follow this and remain active on the all the work that is taking place throughout the company. However, not all CEO’s possess the same talent as Jobs’ nor, do they possess the same amount of motivation and dedication for the company. Thus, it might not work for all CEO’s that will follow him. Thus, this solely depends on the CEO itself, however, I believe that this organizational structure will not be very long lasting, as not all CEO’s can handle the burden.

 

What is Training?

Induction is the training to given to newly hired employees, so that they understand their roles and responsibilities in the company. Providing training for staff varies on company to company, some companies provide day-long workshops, to teach their employees new skills. If in the case of a new software being used, the company can provide training on using the particular software. There are two types of trainings:

• On-the-job training: In this type of training, other experienced members of the staff provide the training.
• Off the job training: In this type of training, external experts are called to provide training to the staff. These external experts are paid.

Training is good in general as it helps to motivate the staff and thus, improving staff retention.

What are Apple’s training opportunities?

For store employees, Apple provides free training for the employees that have been selected for the job in Apple. The training can last from a few days to a few weeks. Apple provides an entire guidebook indicating how a store employee should act with a customer and all employees must act with etiquette while addressing the customer. Apple also provides training for students, who would like a part time job in AppleCare, the training procedure is the same as for store employees, except held during summer breaks, as the employees are students. Apple provides inductions for all types of new employees. Apple also has partnered with many universities to provide workers with high quality education.